"I do begrudge what he's done in this fiscal cliff talks," said syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer to Fox News host Sean Hannity. "It's been very clear from the beginning that he [President Obama] had no intention to solve the fiscal issues. He's been using this, and I must say with great skill and ruthless skill and success, to fracture and basically shatter the Republican opposition. The only, you know, redoubt of the opposition is the House. And his objective from the very beginning was to break the will of the Republicans in the House and to create an internal civil war, and he's done that."

Krauthammer gives the president far more credit than he deserves. The division separating establishment and conservative Republicans has existed for decades. Now that America is poised to venture past the point of no return - assuming a crushing debt that can never be repaid, while diminishing individual freedom in the process - establishment Republicans are forced to choose sides.

GOP House Speaker John Boehner marginalized the conservatives of his party to help the president increase taxes and raise the debt ceiling. It's disingenuous for Krauthammer to say a crafty Obama made Boehner do it. Republican leaders, in the end, made the conscious choice to follow Obama's lead.

Furthermore, Krauthammer forgets that the GOP's "internal civil war" began during the 2010 Republican primaries for the House and Senate. That's when the Tea Party successfully unseated many a Boehner-like Republican. If, as Krauthammer insists, Obama seeks to "break the will of the Republicans in the House," the Tea Party must increase its efforts to unseat easily breakable, Boehner-like Republicans.

If the contest between President Obama and Speaker Boehner is viewed as a boxing match, why does Krauthammer condemn Obama for landing skillful punches to Boehner's glass jaw?

Krauthammer should stop making silly excuses for the GOP's slow-witted bums.

All revenue bills (taxes) must originate in the House of Representatives. Obama wants higher and higher and higher taxes, which will turn the Obama Great Recession into the America’s Greatest Depression. We need a substantial tax cut (and simplification).

If any taxes are actually raised, it will be because the House of Reps agreed to do it.
Pure and simple.
This means that we will just have to replace the Reps who vote to raise our taxes.
Not a difficult concept. We can do it. Let’s get ready!

I don’t want to know what, if anything, Kraut thinks. He and all the other so-called conservative/RINO pundits in DC, NY and elsewhere are financially vested in playing second, the “loyal opposition” to this madman and all the other Democrat Presidents before him. They like their social tier, the parties, the recognition, the publicity, the attention, and the second-tier power that comes with being a useless mouthpiece, albeit not too obnoxious, for the RINO persuasion. Screw them all.

The Republican leadership are all closet dims and will never fight to win, only to appear to fight and perpetuate the aristocracy.

Repeal the 17th amendment, get back more power to the states, change the primaries to stop allowing 1 or 2 low populated states to decide which candidates get to move forward for the other 90% of the country to choose from, it is mind numbing to see who comes out of the those races.

Stop watching MSM and getting news from Letterman. As Rush calls the the low informed public is deciding things before us in fly over country or the red states get to choose a horse.

I must admit that I do like Dr. Krauthammer and appreciated his wit and occasional sarcasm he delivers during Bret Bair’s roundatbles, in fact its the only reason I watch them. His knowledge and insight regarding international affairs is unmatched on the show, however, when it comes to the political war in the Beltway, he tends to always side with the RINO’s and credits the jug-eared moron with much more ability than he possesses.

I must say with great skill and ruthless skill and success, to fracture and basically shatter the Republican opposition.

Urbansurvival...I know there are highly respected political analyze who are saying B.O. wants us to go over the cliff. It would be like winning the exacted for him. But he can only pull this off if he can successfully blame the Republicans. A recent poll release today shows 44% of the population blames the Republicans for this mess, and 36% blame the Democrats. Those are not enough chips on his side of the table to pull this off. We go over the cliff, he goes with us.

For a couple of years I keep asking what is stopping a third party (call it Tea Party, or Conservative) from running Reps and Senators? Bernie Sanders and ex-Senator Joe Lieberman both ran as Independents and yet caucused with the RATS. Why can the RATS do it and the GOP cannot - just more hypocrisies or dimwitnedness on the GOP side.

Great article. Right on point.
I have said here several times.
If the GOP do not like the fiscal cliff now, why did they sign on to it
last year?
I hope we have a vote and expose who needs to be primaried in 2014
in both the Senate and House.

Yep. Go over the cliff - all the way. Sandra Fluck wants her birth control.People have very short memories. 2 years from now, all the impoverished Americans will remember is that this happened on Obomas watch. The buck stops there. If you vote for a tax and spend democrat, all you're going to get is taxing and spending. Period.

Next time, people may actually think - and come out to vote. It's either that, or the commies in Washington and their freeloading base will want even more.

To be perfectly honest, there isn’t much or anything I can do about the freedom of other people. That is their fight to wage. I am not going to effort to preserve the freedom of those who vote it away. I’m not going to effort to fight for the freedom of those to ignorant to know what it is.

I am not going to concern myself with fretting about how to elect more republicans, because electing more republicans does not matter at all.

If a people is to remain free, then it must deal with any threat to that freedom swiftly and harshly in such a way that anyone else who thinks they are going to come in and mastermind utopia will know exactly the fate that awaits them.

But that is not happening, and it is not going to happen here. Freedom in the United States is not going to go out with a bang, it isn’t going to go out with a whimper. rather it is going to go out with thunderous applause.

Knowing that, I concern myself with my own freedom, because that is the only freedom that I can effect in this world. And when I can no longer effect my own freedom in this world, then I will leave it.

He and all the other so-called conservative/RINO pundits in DC, NY and elsewhere are financially vested in playing second, the loyal opposition to this madman and all the other Democrat Presidents before him.

2 years from now, all the impoverished Americans will remember is that this happened on Obomas watch

Unfortunately it won't matter. The 1937 depression-in-the-depression, which came in the first year of FDR's second term, was never blamed on FDR, but on Hoover, who hadn't been in office for five years (sound familiar?). "Low-information voters" don't follow ideas; they follow people, and Obama is the person they are following right now. We have no equivalent "face" on our side, and it will take a while to "grow" one, because, unlike Obama who could leapfrog into the public consciousness without vetting, anyone who attempts to become our "face" will experience withering scrutiny (cf. "Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann"), and will have to be able to overcome it by dissing it openly and appealing directly to the 53% on a constant and consistent basis.

Yeah, no doubt, we do have different perspectives on what is a serious challenge to freedom as we know it.

From my own eyes I cannot see any easy or fast solution, because of the involvement of other people as well as the slow turning wheels of government. In fact I believe those wheels turn in the other direction all the time.

In the very least if you have a people that wants to be free, then a chance exists for freedom to win. But if you do not have a people that wants to be free...then you have what we have in this country. Certainly this does not speak to everyone, but it does speak to enough of them to land us in our current predicament.

So my answer is to boil it all down to my freedom. How do I live free in a world of people who do want want to be free and people who do not want to let me be free? I do that by the choices I make in my own life. I do what I want, when I want and I do not do what others want. Of course I have to temper that will. if I take action that lands me in jail, then I have forfeit my freedom, and that is not my goal.

I suppose that someday my rebellious nature will lead me into direct conflict with the masterminds, but I do not fear that day.

The problem here is that the Scumbag Rinos are negotiating to get the Conservatives to be able to Vote No on any tax increases by getting enough Democrats to vote with them and ace out the republican conservatives

I don’t see any way to stop the DC Party, no matter how many Tea
Party Congresscritters we send to Washington.
The K-Street money changers will either corrupt them or work deals with
RATS to pass bills with very few GOP votes needed.
Trent Lott once said “you can’t change Washington”.
I am beginning to believe he was right, even though I despise Lott.
The DC Party, the party of Washington always seems to find a way to
get their tax and spend bill through, no matter what.
I’m guessing the only outcome that can stop them is a collapse of the entire
economy.

that is a real problem indeed!
amazing.
we need to start campaigning specifically to replace any “representatives” that vote or negotiate for any more tax increases, or do not sponsor and vote for the tax cuts we need

a member of the House that negotiates for any higher taxes needs to be retired at the very next election (2014)

meanwhile, tighten your belts and save everything you can (to pay all of Obama’s tax increases and new taxes he’s created that previously didn’t even exist)

The negotiations are nothing but pantomime. We have about twice the government we are willing to pay for, and no one in Washington on either side of the aisle is talking about reducing the scope and reach of government. They need to axe about two trillion from the budget per year, and they are talking billions over ten years which is essentially nothing at all (especially as it depends upon future congresses and future presidents).

The argument is about hitting bottom at 100 mph versus 99.9 mph. This is not a serious discussion, it is eyewash.

I wouldn’t vote for any Dem involved in this, and I don’t see why I would vote for any Repub who agrees with this. They aren’t serious people, they aren’t honest. They are collapsing the dollar and no one is prepared to say so out loud.

Gutless, morally vacant, and unprincipled limp-wristed pansies, a immoral, vile, perverted socialist-loving propagandists posing as a “free” media, and a parasitic, productivity-draining entitlement class created by a Demonic Party who seeks to perpetuate the very policies that continue to prevail.

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